"East Vancouver always gets bypassed": Town hall calls for Renfrew Community Centre renewal

Kaori Lau remembers splashing about at the pool at Renfrew Community Centre as a child. 

Now a mother of two and a supervisor at a private swimming school, she said her entire family still relies heavily on their local community centre. 

“My parents are Chinese seniors, and I try to get them more into community things…[Renfrew’s seniors programming] is great for them to have a life outside of the home and keep healthy and connected,” Lau told Vancity Lookout, adding that her children attend the nearby Renfrew Elementary School and also rely on the community centre’s programming and facilities. 

Lau is just one of the more than 150 invested locals who showed up for a town hall at Renfrew Community Centre in late August. The meeting focused on the need to renew the community centre’s buildings, which has become a key municipal election issue for Lau and other community members.

“This place basically hasn’t been changed for 20 or 25 years,” Lau said. “Everything here is really dated…Considering community centres around the city are getting upgrades, a little bit of money can be put into this centre as well.” 

Renfrew Community Centre was built in 1964. The last major renovations were done in 2003 and 2009: the first an upgrade to the pool, and the second a renovation of the change rooms.

Renfrew Community Centre was notably absent from the most recent version of the capital plan — a funding document that dictates the city’s investment strategy for the next four years. 

The city has earmarked nearly $500 million to fund the renewal of five community centres, pool upgrades, and project planning, including for Kensington and Hastings community centres in East Vancouver. 

However, Renfrew was passed over, despite being listed as the second-highest priority for renewal or replacement in the park board’s 2022 Community Centre Strategy. The Kerrisdale and Dunbar community centres were chosen for upgrades, despite ranking eighth and eleventh in that same park board strategy.

“Unfortunately, I feel like East Vancouver always gets bypassed,” Lau said. “People want votes in the West Side, and that’s usually what happens.” 

The final centre set to receive funding —  Roundhouse Community Centre in Yaletown — was not among the community centres highlighted in the report at all. 

Renfrew Park Community Association President, Anthony Mehnert said that while Roundhouse does have some “major leakage problems” around the doors in their facility, he feels that many of the approved community centre upgrades “have a bit of a political slant to it.” 

As we reported in April, the specific projects that were funded in this capital plan were chosen by Mayor Ken Sim and his staff. That direction was then approved by ABC councillors through the party’s majority on city council, rather than following the standard procedure of providing funding for the park board and letting it choose specific projects based on its own internal planning.

“I think [the city was] looking for some quick wins and easy stuff to do,” Mehnert said, acknowledging that “because [Renfrew] has a pool, that’s a lot more expensive.” 

He told Vancity Lookout that fully replacing the centre would cost an estimated $200 million. The unique ecology of the surrounding area, notably the creek and ravine running near the centre, would also have to be factored into the upgrades.

“Hastings is a ‘plug and play’ site…they'll be able to build an entire new building on one of the parking lots, and then literally move the entire community center into the new building over a weekend,” said Mehnert. “Ours will be a little more difficult.” 

Despite the work required to replace the centre, Mehnert said that the "surprising" turnout at  the town hall demonstrates how important this issue is to the community. 

Hosted by Vancouver-Renfrew MLA Adrian Dix, the event featured presentations from  community centre association staff, followed by remarks from various candidates for mayor, council and park board.  

Kepler Rotheisler, a Renfrew Park Community Association board member, highlighted the additional strain the Rupert and Renfrew Station Area Plan is expected to place on the neighbourhood, which we reported on last summer. 

Passed in July 2025, the plan aims to construct an additional 10,000 homes in the area by 2050, according to CBC. One of the projects, a nearby four-tower development, would add approximately 5,000 additional residents in 10 years or less. 

“We have about half of the community centre space per person in this neighbourhood compared to other parts of the city [as it is],” Rotheisler said during the town hall. 

Rotheisler noted that the 14 criteria set out in the report that listed Renfrew as a top priority for renewal included the condition of the building, service gaps, the provision of critical services, and the centre’s very “high seismic risk.” 

“We love having more people. We love seeing the community thrive. But the downside of that is that without funding for the community centre, there’s not going to be any space available for people,” said Rotheisler. “The community centre very soon may not even be a safe space.”

Various speakers highlighted the importance of Renfrew Community Centre as a “third-space,” a place to access vital, affordable services and connect with neighbours.

 Albert Lee runs an important program for Chinese seniors, like Lau’s parents. 

“Over these years, we have more than 2,500 seniors [who] use our service,” Lee said during the town hall, adding that the group currently has more than 200 active members. The seniors program just celebrated its 30th anniversary, while Lee received a national honour for his contribution to the community in 2025.

“Space [and storage] is always a challenge,”  Lee said. “It was mentioned more than one time that seismic reinforcement is not here with us, so each time I have our program, I always look up and say, ‘Hey, is this going to be okay for today?’ And so far it has been, I’m really grateful for that.”

Leaks throughout the building, as well as the waitlist for Renfrew’s childcare centre, were also of grave concern. “We need to think about the long-term sustainability of the facility,” Mehnert argued. 

The after-school care program waitlist is currently double the length of its existing membership. 

The preschool room currently has only one in-room washroom, and the centre lacks an outdoor play space; the closest option is a playground next door that is at least 30 years old. 

The 2027-2030 Capital Plan includes a budget of nearly $500 million to renew and retrofit five community centres, as well as create two new outdoor pools at Marpole and Sunset community centres, and pays for planning and design work for other projects, like a new 50 metre pool, upgrades to Kits Pool, and renewal of the Britannia Community Centre. 

During the town hall, Jerry Fast, the Chair of the Association Presidents’ Group representing 19 different community centres across the city, said that “the city’s capital plan was arrived at without any consultation with the community centre associations.”

Fast acknowledged that “not all centres can be replaced in a four-year capital cycle.” However, he said that he was “baffled” that despite the park board recommending Kensington, Hastings and Renfrew as the three top priorities for renewal, Mayor Ken Sim chose to prioritize  Kensington, Hastings, Roundhouse, Kerrisdale and Dunbar. 

While Roundhouse, Kerrisdale and Dunbar are “in need of capital maintenance expenditures to fix serious deficiencies,” Fast said, he added that the associations at these three centres “support the [park board’s] Community Centre Strategy” and “they did not ask for a replacement.”

During the Town Hall, candidates from all major political parties running for the park board or council were in attendance, with the notable exception of the ABC party. All expressed their support for upgrades to Renfrew. 

“I was pleasantly surprised that [all parties in attendance] were in favour of sticking with the official community centre strategy report,” Mehnert told Vancity Lookout. 

COPE park board candidate Sacia Burton and TEAM city council candidate Josh Gordon said they use the Renfrew Community Centre and emphasized the building's importance to the community. Gordon added that TEAM is the only party interested in repealing the Rupert-Renfrew Area Plan and “revise [it] in line with more neighbourhood consultation.”

Former OneCity mayoral candidate William Azaroff, who recently dropped out of the race, highlighted that “we need to speed up the delivery of these services,” adding that “we see other municipalities are able to deliver community centres at a far cheaper rate than Vancouver does.” 

Vancouver Liberal mayoral candidate Kareem Allam said that he plans to reverse the “defunding” of the park board that occurred under Ken Sim. Earlier this year, Allam called for city council to allocate $1.35 billion to the park board in the next capital plan. However, the capital plan that was approved in July provides about half that amount, $739 million, in funding for the park board, which still represents a 68 per cent increase from the current capital plan. 

Mehnert reflected that Vancouver’s park board and city council have not been on the same page lately. “If you look at the park board, they have all these great plans and then… council never supplies enough funding for it,” he said. 

Mehnert told Vancity Lookout that the Renfrew Park Community Association has already had to pay for several significant upgrades itself, including $110,000 for air conditioning in one of the community centre’s main meeting rooms and $50,000 for a community kitchen. “We’re a non-profit… but the city didn’t pay for any of that,” he said. 

Vancouver’s annual infrastructure deficit of approximately $500 million is significant, while the current level of funding is “not sufficient to maintain assets in a state of good repair, let alone address funding for asset replacement,” according to a 2025 report by the city’s auditor general.

As we wrote about last year, the report noted that “council did not have an approved policy or strategy… to guide asset management for recreation facilities.” As of 2022, 72 per cent of facilities were categorized as in “poor or very poor” condition. The report concluded that “the City’s recreation facilities were not effectively managed to align with strategic goals, meet service level priorities and optimize asset lifecycles.” 

“Other places [like Coquitlam, North Vancouver and Burnaby] have figured out how to actually plan ahead,” said Mehnert. “We need to start planning. We need [the] money to do this, and get it done — Vancouver does not seem to get things done.”

The City of Vancouver did not provide a response to Vancity Lookout’s request for comment by publication time.